Lustrous Images from the Enlightenment:  The Medals of the Dassiers of Geneva
Subtitle: Incorporating an Illustrated General Catalogue
Edition: First
Publisher: Skira
Published: 2010
Place of publication: Milan
Number of pages: 222
Subjects: art history
First sentence: I am pleased to present this work to the Genevan and international public, revealing to what point the Dassier family of medallists - "fascinating artists", in the words of the art historian Marcel Roethlisberger - were appreciated in all of Europe.
Description: The Dassiers (Jean Dassier,1676-1763 and his two sons, Jacques-Antoine, 1715-1759 and Antoine, 1718-1780) were the only medalists of their time to have had the honor of being mentioned in the Encyclopédie of  Diderot and D'Alembert, in which one can read that "they have rendered their names famous through their same talent: their fine medals after nature and several other works emerging from their burin prove that they are worthy of being counted amongst the most celebrated engravers." The work constitutes the first art book on the subject and is intended for a wide audience, encompassing connoisseurs and the cultivated reading public. Eighty full-page color plates and an illustrated catalogue of medals present the masterworks that established the reputation of the Dassiers, starting with an elegant silver watch case by Jean Dassier for the Fabrique de Genève (Paris, Louvre), three series of small medals: The Metamorphoses by Ovid (1717; 60 pieces) and Illustrious men of the century of Louis XIV (1723-1724; 73 pieces) and, finally, The Church reformers (1725; 24 pieces). This last series was dedicated to William Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, who offered the Dassiers his support in obtaining royal authorization to strike two major series, The Kings of England (1731-1732) and Famous Britons (1731-1738). Borrowing from the fame of his father throughout Europe, Jacques-Antoine, a former pupil of the Académie française de Rome, threw himself into the creation of a new series dedicated to worthies in England, including savants, writers and politicians. At the peak of his career, he had the privilege of producing a portrait of Montesquieu, a work that is a milestone in the history of art (1753). This European reputation ensured that he was invited as engraver to the court of Russia, where he produced his last masterpiece, The founding of the University of Moscow (1754), decorated with an extremely bold portrait of the Empress Elizabeth. The death of Jacques-Antoine in 1759 and of his father four years later marked the end of a glorious artistic and commercial enterprise after 60 years of activity.
Notes: Eighty color plates; chronologies of the history of the Dassier family and the historical framework of their works; complete illustrated catalogue of the 359 medals from the workshop, with concordances to the catalogue raisonné: William Eisler, The Dassiers of Geneva, 2 vols., Lausanne and Geneva, 2002-2005; index.